gregladen | August 12, 2010I know Marc Hauser, and I trust him. I worked with him for a few years as a colleague on the faculty in the Anthropology department on various administrative matters (such as graduate admission and undergraduate program development) and we taught together. We are very different kinds of people, and did not always see eye to eye (well, we disagreed on one thing, once), but the same can be said of almost any two people from those days and that department, to some degree.
I've just heard about the "investigation" into his lab and the retraction of, so far, one paper produced in that lab…
gregladen | August 12, 2010... can be found here, in this talk by William Phillips speaking at the AAAS:
at 1:08. The implication is that we will only see grief if we don't give religious people the origin of life and the origin of the universe. Presumably we fire the scientists working on these issues.
I found this in a post on related topics: Tact not entirely decided upon at Thinkers' Podium.
gregladen | August 12, 2010Did you know that galaxies can die? They are apparently declared dead by astronomers when they stop making new stars. But a recent finding suggests that this kind of death is not the end of the road for at least some galaxies.
Astronomers have found mysterious, giant loops of ultraviolet light in aged, massive galaxies, which seem to have a second lease on life. Somehow these "over-the-hill galaxies" have been infused with fresh gas to form new stars that power these truly gargantuan rings, some of which could encircle several Milky Way galaxies.
The discovery of these rings implies that…
gregladen | August 11, 2010... which begs a number of different questions that I will think but not say out loud.
This surprising 'result' (which you should not take seriously as stated) comes from a fascinating bit of on -line research and reporting in which Christian Rudder qualitatively tested photographs taken with various technologies and stuff by asking a zillion people "which of the following individuals would you chose for a date" when shown two photographs.
Rudder demonstrates and makes the claim that more complex devices such as digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras produce more date-worthy photographs…
gregladen | August 11, 2010It is possible that a much earlier than previously known date for the use of flaked stone tools has been established in Ethiopia, dating to prior to 3.39 million years ago.
A paper just out in Nature by McPherron et al suggests that a set of marks found on two bones recovered from the surface very near a locality for which an estimated date can be obtained were caused in antiquity by stone tools wielded by hominids. The date predates any prior known chipped stone tool artifacts of the kind that would leave such marks. The absence of chipped stone tools in the archaeological record in which…
gregladen | August 11, 2010The newly reported Saadanius hijazensis may or may not be a "missing link" but in order for this monkey to climb onto the primate family tree, a new branch had to be sprouted. So, not only is Saadanius hijazensis a new species, but it is a member of a new taxonomic Family, Saadaniidae, which in turn is a member of a new Superfamily, Saadanioidea. Why is this important? It's complicated. But not too complicated.
The fossil was found while University of Michigan paleontologist Iyad Zalmout was busy looking for dinosaur fossils in western Saudi Arabia. He found the monkey, from a much…
gregladen | August 11, 2010I don't use OpenOffice unless I have to, but sometimes I have to and it's nice to know that a PDF importing extension is available. But there are some tricks to using it, which are nicely addressed here.
One problem related to the extension, but it is not the extensions fault, is that Oracle bought Sun, and thus "owns" the extension, and is messing with it in a bad way. From the cited source:
That is why free desktop users should be disturbed that Oracle, the new custodian of the extension, is not making it available for downloading. Not only is this situation a possible violation of the…
gregladen | August 11, 2010No, no, probably not, although I did receive my first BP Oil Spill denialist comment this morning. Nonetheless, we have had very little in the way of storms that might develop into hurricanes.
The best I can do for you now is Tropical Depression FIVE, which is sitting in the Gulf and heading for New Orleans, where it will be a very bad storm with heavy rain and wind ... an actual "tropical storm" ... but not enough of a problem to do much other than remember to close the windows and cancel the soft ball game or whatever one does out doors for entertainment in August in Coastal Louisiana…
gregladen | August 11, 2010Wyoming, which is a pretty stupid state sometimes, although you don't hear about it too often because almost no one lives there, has a candidate for governor who
... wants teachers to be required to teach creationism. "I think it is as valuable a theory as any other theory."
... is opposed to abortion even in the context of rape.
... in what the Casper Star-Tribune called "A momumental display of bad judgement" he advocated for leniency for his friend Ty in a rape case. Ry is now serving 60 years in the pen for raping a Casper woman in her home.
In a poll conducted nearly two weeks ago,…
gregladen | August 10, 2010Today was primary day in Minnesota. Amanda and I are wearing our "I voted" stickers. We wore them to the grocery store. We were the only ones there wearing them. Of course, there were a lot of mullets, and I ain't talking fish, which is like voting with your hair. And, the sound of the country western karaoke rises like the call of the loon above the sound of hail and thunder. Voting with noise. But we voted with a sharpie. The sharpie is mightier than the mullet, though just barely.
Speaking of politics, go visit Uncle Ted is Dead for one of the more moving tributes to Senator Ted…
gregladen | August 10, 2010Neurodegenerative diseases (i.e. Alzheimer's and Huntington's) often involves the formation of aggregates of proteins in a patients' brain, correlated with the process of degeneration. Some of these proteins are unique to the specific disease and others are commonly found in healthy individuals but also occur intertwined with the disease-linked types. Until now, these "common proteins" were thought to be an effect of sampling the tissues and were ignored as background. A new paper out today in PLoS Biology suggests, however, that these protein aggregates may be linked to aging. The main…
gregladen | August 10, 2010They both voted against HR 1586, as expected.
I'm voting for Meffert. Right now, as a matter of fact.
gregladen | August 10, 2010When I met the Chechen president in the capital's football stadium last summer, he told me: "Women are so much more interesting when they are covered up."
Officials nearby smiled awkwardly as Kadyrov boasted that Chechen men can take "second, third and fourth wives" and that polygamy, illegal in Russia, was the best way to revive his war-ravaged republic.
According to some estimates, one in five Chechen marriages begins when a girl is snatched off the street and forced into a car by her future groom and his accomplices. The internet is full of videos of these "bride stealings" set to romantic…
gregladen | August 10, 2010The former Senator from Alaska was one of five killed in the crash of a small plane on which were nine people. Former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe is among those who may or may not have. NPR is reporting this.
Earlier in his career, Stevens was an AGW denialist, but later got on board and began to support legislation to curb human impacts on climate. Then, later, he became a "The glacier is coming anyway" denialist, but mostly slipped into incoherent babbling when it came to climate change.
The crash apparently happened yesterday, and for some time today reports as to whether or not…
gregladen | August 10, 2010Apropos a discussion on Jaf's facebook page regarding the efficacy of leaving one's car window open while driving on the lake-ice (to escape in the event the ice breaks), I decided I needed one of these Emergency Hammers, just in case. Little did I realize that this versatile tool can also be used to order Chicken MgNuggets at McDonalds, even during the Breakfast Menu Blackout Period:
Hat Tip: Andrew
gregladen | August 10, 2010Jeff Medkeff died of liver cancer in August 2008. This year, the Atlantic Area Skeptics will hold the annual Star Party event in his honor, and with the intention of raising money for cancer research.
Jeff Medkeff, also known as the Blue Collar Scientist was an astronomer, writer, skeptic and friend to many of us. In the late 1990's, he began working in the field of astronomical technology as a systems engineer and software developer. He was also an asteroid hunter. As a result of his work he discovered or co-discovered hundreds of asteroids and named several asteroids after famous skeptics…
gregladen | August 10, 2010In Robert Gardner's documentary film Dead Birds, the men of a highland New Guinea village guard the perimeter of the territory, watchful for men of the neighboring group who may be intent on sneaking into the gardens to capture and kill an unwitting child or woman in order to avenge a prior death. But they don't see the men sneaking through the dense riparian forest. They don't even look for them. Rather, they see the birds fly from their preferred habitat where they are foraging or resting, startled into the open by ... something. The birds belie the predator.
Today, in construction…
gregladen | August 10, 2010The chorus of support for the teaching of evolution continues, with three statements from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the American Statistical Association, and the Union for Reform Judaism.
In its statement, the American Society of Plant Taxonomists endorses "the use of evolution in the scholarship of its members and supports teaching this theory in schools, colleges and universities," adding, "As educators, we believe that evolution is an essential component of science education. In the absence of an evolutionary context, our understanding of the origin and complexity of the…
gregladen | August 9, 2010"There are the obvious effects like oiled birds and saltmarshes, but it seems many of the effects will be more insidious. Scientists I spoke to are particularly concerned about the larval phases of fish and invertebrates, which are planktonic and not able to avoid patches of oil the way free-swimmers might. Experiments conducted after Exxon Valdez have shown that very small amounts of oil can have sublethal affects as well. Fortunately for BP, the ecology of the Gulf was already crippled. ..."
This is an excellent interview. Read the rest here. Jennifer's blog is here. .
gregladen | August 9, 2010... and 2010 Amendments to The National Academies' Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research:
In 2005, the National Academies released the book, Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research, which offered a common set of ethical standards for a field that, due to the absence of comprehensive federal funding, was lacking national standards for research. In order to keep the Guidelines up to date, given the rapid pace of scientific and policy developments in the field of stem cell research, the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee was established in 2006 with…